Showcase Konica 85mm f/1.8 Hexanon AR

I was lucky enough to find a good condition Konica Hexanon 85/1.8 recently at a garage sale. Here's a few images from my first day out with it. Shot with an E-PL1 with some PP done in Aperture. I didn't have a hood and many of the shots were a bit washed out - will try again with a hood this weekend.

Ah, the Memorial Union Terrace at UW-Madison...a fine place to work while enjoying a beer!

I'm probably not the best person to demonstrate what this lens is capable of - to be honest I mostly shoot street or detail photos and don't have much opportunity for portraits these days. But I went out this afternoon and tried to get a few shots wide-open using an ND filter. Definitely not an ideal use scenario because even when you try to prefocus the DoF is so thin that it's tough to catch someone as they go by. Lots of out-of-focus rejected shots...I'll try to find a willing subject to pose for me this weekend!

Like many legacy lenses, even with a reasonably deep lens hood there's a softness or "halo" effect with this lens at max aperture - it sharpens up significantly at the next stop (f2.8 on my version). Even if I had time to focus on a stationary subject for a portrait, I would prefer to stop the lens down a bit.

As this lens was designed with portrait shooting in the mind, I have tried some recently. Still not easy to nail focus with MF lens when casual people shooting at such focal length (170mm at FF) even with E-M5's IS and magnification assistance. Focus picking could help a lot in this case .

Still not easy to nail focus with MF lens when casual people shooting at such focal length (170mm at FF) even with E-M5's IS and magnification assistance. Focus picking could help a lot in this case .

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Just an opinion, but if you can't nail focus using magnification then focus peaking won't be any better. Peaking may be faster, but magnification is more accurate. Fear not though... with practice you'll get both faster and more accurate.